Welcome to the first of our freshly updated Newsletters. We hope to not only continue bringing you the latest in ideas and news from the IT industry, but to keep "that's Correct" evolving, making it even more useful and interesting for you, our readers.

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The Correct Solutions Team

• We continue our series on Virtualisation. What are the benefits and how do they relate to you?
• We also pick up where we left off last month with SharePoint, delving this edition into the powerful search capabilities that can save you time and improve productivity.
  
• Have a need for IT Infrastructure but finding it difficult to budget for in the current climate? It is entirely possible to see growth despite the stormy weather…
• Plus - don't miss our special offer, your chance to fix your monthly IT costs.

In our last article we introduced you to virtualisation. We got a few emails from readers asking about what the advantages of such infrastructure are to the business. Virtualisation offers many benefits for most businesses that use it. Let’s look at what they are and how to make the most of them.

• Benefit #1 – Reduced Hardware Costs

One of the first benefits you will see with Virtualisation is the fact that instead of purchasing a number of smaller servers, you will invest in a single server that has more capacity. Because the Virtual instances are not all 100% busy all of the time, we can invest in single set of hardware with specifications that are actually less than the total requirements of each of the physical servers we are replacing. Initially that seems strange, but it’s based on the fact that each Virtual instance will share all the resources of the Physical Server.

• Benefit #2 – Improved Disaster Recovery

For a standard server environment installed on HP, IBM or other server hardware, the normal setup calls for the operating system to be configured specifically for the hardware upon which it’s installed. In this scenario, if there is a disaster (eg hardware failure, fire, theft) it is not always possible to get exactly the same set of hardware, particularly if the server is a few years old; we will most likely need to “massage” the operating system to handle different physical hardware. This can be problematic at times and therefore a little risky.

The Virtual Environment however masks the physical hardware with “pretend” or Virtual hardware that remains the same, regardless of the physical hardware under the covers. This makes it VERY simple for us to restore the virtualised environment to alternate server hardware without worrying about the brand, make or model of the original equipment. Even a highly spec’d desktop can be used in an emergency! A virtual environment will ensure the business gets up and running sooner.

• Benefit #3 – Environmentally Friendly

Of course, this is a great “buzz phrase” to be associated with; but it can translate into real cost savings! As mentioned above, when you have multiple physical servers, they are sitting there idle most of the time. However they are still drawing a certain amount of power. They still require air conditioning to keep them cool. When you virtualise multiple servers onto one piece of hardware, you will attain real power savings by virtue of not having the multiple physical systems running all of the time.

• Benefit #4 – Reduced Maintenance Costs

Again, because we have a single server, we only need to pay for extended warranties and the like for ONE physical server. This can help us get more bangs for buck from our hardware over the life of the server.

Ok – that’s enough for this issue. Next issue we will look at any downsides of Virtualisation, to get a balanced view of the full picture.

Want to get these benefits now? Call us on 1300 COR SOL so we can discuss your requirements.

If we need to find something these days, we know that the first place to look is probably the Internet. It is a huge resource of ever growing information that would be totally useless without one simple technology; Search.

Search allows most of the information that resides on the Internet to be indexed and catalogued so that we can locate what we need. Now consider the information you have in all the files and folders on your network.
Can they be as easily indexed, catalogued and retrieved? The answer is – at the moment, probably not.

It is unlikely that you currently have technology like Internet Search inside your organisation. Why is this? Isn't the information inside your documents really more important to you than what is on the Internet? Why is that you don't have the ability to search the contents of every document on your network?

Search is a key technology of the modern age and something that most businesses should be running inside their organisation to improve efficiency. Luckily, SharePoint technologies provide you with a platform to achieve exactly that. Everything you save into SharePoint is automatically indexed, including contacts, documents, notes, calendar items and so on.

Even more impressive, by using some additional SharePoint features, it is possible to extend this search to every existing document on your network! This means you don't have to make any changes to the way that you save data; it is automatically indexed and made available for searching.

Because SharePoint is a technology that you deploy within your organisation, it conforms to the network security you have established. This means that although people can use search they will not see results to which they normally have no access. This is known as "security trimming" and is an important feature of SharePoint search that is lacking in general Internet searching.

The competitiveness of a business today depends on its ability to retrieve information in the most efficient manner possible. The Internet already provides these tools but the question is, have you deployed search within your organisation? If not then this is one of the many features that SharePoint may be able to offer your business.

You only have to flick open the Business section of any given paper to know at the moment, times are tough. Companies are cutting back on spending. Problem – nobody can afford to just bunker down and take cover until the economic climate brightens; it is imperative that businesses continue to grow and manage that growth appropriately.

This includes their infrastructure and when it comes to IT, a sturdy, well-maintained and up-to-date system can be the cornerstone of a productive organisation. But IT investment can be daunting – particularly with all the warnings about tightening the purse strings and news bulletins that bring tidings of economic woe.

So how does a company even think about updating server infrastructure that is low on disk space and slowing down the exchange of information? How does a business facilitate refreshing an old fleet of PCs that are potential security threats due to old operating systems and applications?

In principle, the investment is undeniably important; new infrastructure takes advantage of the latest improvements in both hardware and software technology. It can make a huge difference in the performance of a company’s network – the improvements in speed make the network feel tangibly zippier. An investment in your IT can bring you real savings in areas such as power consumption and staff productivity. You may know you need it, but how do you do it, realistically?

Here are a couple of ideas that can make the process of updating more manageable.

• Financing

We have been Microsoft Financing partners for some time now and can recommend it as a great alternative to a bank loan. Unlike traditional financing, Microsoft Financing covers 100 percent of eligible Microsoft and third-party software, partner services and hardware…with no hidden costs. With three and five year terms available, you can break your IT investment down into manageable monthly repayments, greatly improving your cash flow.

• Service Provider Licensing & Software Assurance

Businesses tend to struggle keeping up-to-date with new versions of software. It is no secret that software vendors such as Microsoft go through product phases every 3 – 5 years. This can leave companies behind when the only licensing they have is OEM and they have no upgrade path. Each time a new version of an operating system or application is released, companies are either forced to stay with the versions they have, or spend thousands on new licensing. Rather than admonishing the fact vendors do this, it is best to try and plan around it.

Service Provider Licensing (SPLA) will allow a business to access the latest versions of software via a subscription model. This means you only pay for what you use, and you pay for the right to use the software monthly, turning the investment from Capital expenditure into an Operational expense. SPLA is a great way of keeping the software across your fleet uniform and current.

If you do buy OEM licensing, a good way to maximise your Microsoft investment is to add a Software Assurance Agreement to it. Particularly for server operating systems or desktop applications (such as Office) Software Assurance means not only do you own the license; for the term of the agreement you can access the latest version, move it from one machine to another, as well as accessing extended usage rights such as Home Use (the ability to give your employees the right to use the software at home).

For more detail on these and other ideas when planning your IT investments, call us to discuss your needs further…